As we let rip into 2022 the message from our leaders about Covid is clear - we're going viral baby.
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Viral in numbers we'd have considered apocalyptic waking up New Years day in 2021, or even last month.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet's 'gloves off' (and mask) approach to the new variant has seen him dubbed 'Domicron Perignon'.
He has clearly differed from his predecessor - Hot Mess Glad Wrap Butter Chicken - who tended to Dr Kerry Chant a more restrained medical mantra.
The outcome has been relatively the same though.
Concern about getting infected.
Amusement about nicknames.
And alarm about the health system's capacity to cope.
One constant remains.
Covid is a numbers game subject to rapid change.
Much like political leadership.
And if hospitalisations continue to rise keep an eye on who's captain of the team come June.
In the meantime, probs time to change the subject.
Otherwise you might go crazy.
And there's easier ways to do that.
Try organising a Christmas dinner, for instance.
I took on this responsibility in 2021, and as the shakes subside, lessons learned guide me forward.
First and foremost - have a plan.
Second and just as important - be prepared to abandon it.
My original plan was ''to be stress free".
But that fell away once the amount of variables dawned.
First you had to work out what you were gonna get for dinner.
Top priority - not Covid.
Then you had to go to the shops and get it.
And again - top priority "not Covid".
But given everyone seemed to be at Argyle House in December - hard to rule out.
Better to focus on people still wearing masks by that stage, and the fact that most of us were vaccinated against something, although not Omicron by the sounds of it.
Medically speaking, nothing made much sense except that maybe this is what "learning to live with Covid" meant.
Having got the stuff for Christmas dinner, then you had to get the timing right.
And in regards to that, I suggest we reschedule Christmas next year to some time round, say, June.
When we're all hopefully not in lockdown again.
It's hard setting the table when all your all your dinner guests keep going into isolation having attended super-spreader events.
Hopefully not your Christmas dinner.
Feeling a bit isolated itself, the government attempted to alleviate that problem by redefining all the definitions of close contact.
Which in turn raised questions about what the hell have we been trying to do these last two years.
The overall effect has now been to focus the mind not so much on the chances of getting covid as the inevitability.
Viva la genetic facility.
It was never going to be simple managing a pandemic, but Christmas dinner rolled out as planned as it could under the circumstances.
Hopefully 2022 will rip forward in a similar way.
